Unintended contamination of objects may occur in a variety of industrial, scientific, or medical settings. In a medical setting, for example, specific contamination precautions must be undertook when cleaning reusable medical equipment. As one example in the medical setting involving reusable medical equipment, endoscopes that are designed for use in multiple procedures must be fully cleaned and reprocessed after a medical procedure to prevent the spread of infectious organisms. Once an endoscope is used in the medical procedure, the endoscope is considered contaminated until it is properly cleaned and disinfected.
Various systems and protocols are used to ensure suitable cleaning and disinfection of endoscopes. For example, machines and devices such as automated endoscope reprocessors are used to perform machine cleaning of an endoscope. As part of a proper cleaning protocol, the machines and devices responsible for the cleaning often require human control and oversight. However, during the cleaning process, any person handling a contaminated endoscope, and all protective gear of the person, is considered contaminated once the person has initiated contact with the contaminated equipment. This may result in the machines, devices, or any other object exposed to human contact also becoming contaminated, resulting in various cross-contamination problems if proper cleaning of these objects is not undertaken. Therefore, there is a general need to reduce human contact with contaminated equipment during cleaning processes, as well as a general need to prevent human contact with non-contaminated equipment once a person becomes contaminated.